Notices held to be illegal

ACORN filed the lawsuit that led to the Nov. 29 decision by U.S. District Judge
Richard J. Leon

in Washington. He found that FEMA's notices telling families they were ineligible for further housing assistance didn't explain the reasons adequately, thus robbing evacuees of the opportunity to appeal or to correct problems that led to the ineligibility.

Leon ordered FEMA to resume housing payments immediately and to pay the families three months of back rent. The order applies to an estimated 11,000 households, including about 2,600 in Houston.

FEMA filed a notice of appeal Tuesday.

At an ACORN news conference in Washington, Jackson Lee and Green denounced FEMA's handling of the case.

"It's time for them to cease and desist this Scrooge-like behavior," Green said, calling on President Bush to order FEMA to comply with the order.

Said Jackson Lee, "There is a clear absence of due process for these survivors.

"This is a lifeline of life or death for them. No housing, no health care — no survival."

FEMA spokesman James McIntyre declined to discuss the agency's reasons for the appeal. "It is still in litigation, and any other comment we make can and will be used as part of the litigation," he said.

"The only thing I would say is that the people who were removed from this program were removed by September, and there is no one being removed from this program at this time."

In Houston, about a dozen Hurricane Katrina victims and ACORN representatives unfurled a banner in front of the building housing FEMA's office in the Reliant Park area.

Eviction notices

Two evacuees displayed eviction notices they received in the past few days, and a third said he wants his landlord repaid for three months that his family was housed without paying rent.

Houston and federal law enforcement officers stood at the door to the building and allowed only one ACORN representative, Ginny Goldman, to enter. Goldman, ACORN's lead organizer in Texas, said a FEMA official agreed to review the cases of the evacuees who came to the office Thursday.

Robert Coakley, a New Orleans resident who was evacuated after Katrina and recently lost the housing assistance he used to rent an apartment in Washington, denounced the agency's action at the Capitol Hill news conference.

"It's a nightmare," said Coakley, who now lives in Baltimore. "I believe the stress and the strain has probably taken months off my life."